We had been walking for several hours. The Wasteland felt endless, but now it wasn’t so silent — the quiet was broken by the crunch of apples. I could see Riza getting tired: her steps grew shorter, and her wings dragged helplessly through the dust.

  I raised another stone shelter, shielding us from the prickly eastern wind. When we settled inside, I spoke in demonic. My voice sounded unusually soft in that language.

  “Do you understand me?”

  She nodded slowly, eyes fixed on her knees.

  “Can you talk?”

  Riza hesitated, her lips trembling. She gathered her courage for a long time before whispering, “Yes.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. It was a small victory.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ri… Riza.”

  “How old are you, Riza?”

  “Six.”

  I froze.

  Only six.

  So small — and she had already seen so much death.

  She lifted her eyes to me — huge, filled with a childlike curiosity that fear hadn’t yet completely strangled.

  “And what… is your name?” she asked quietly.

  “Zenhald.”

  “And how old are you, Zenhald?”

  I smirked, looking at my small hands. Centuries lived inside me, but on the outside…

  “Eleven,” I answered, realizing that in this life I was only five years older than her.

  She probably had never seen humans this close. She studied me for a long time, then said something that made me pause:

  “You look like me. But you don’t have wings. And you don’t have horns either.”

  I smiled again, not knowing how to explain the difference between races.

  But her next words wiped the smile off my face.

  “You’re very strong,” she said with a strange certainty. “Just like my papa.”

  I stayed silent.

  The memory of how I “put a lot of holes in him” stabbed somewhere deep.

  Riza lowered her head, and her voice became tiny.

  “Papa died. He… he said many times this day would come. That he would have to die.”

  And she cried.

  Quietly. Soundlessly — the way those cry who are already used to grief.

  I watched her and felt absolutely helpless. My magic could explode heads and raise mountains, but it didn’t know how to comfort a six-year-old child.

  I did the first thing that came to mind.

  I focused my mana, cooled the moisture in the air, formed a perfectly round white ball in my hands — and tossed it at her. Lightly.

  Riza gasped in surprise as the cold lump burst against her shoulder. She stared at the white grains.

  I made a second ball and held it out to her.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “This is snow,” I said.

  She took it carefully, testing it with her fingers. Her little fingertips reddened from the cold.

  “It’s cold…” she whispered.

  Then she added, looking straight into my soul:

  “Like your soul.”

  I flinched.

  Children in this world really did see more than adults.

  “You’re… not like the others,” she continued, studying the snow more closely. “Not like this world.”

  And suddenly she swung her arm and threw the snowball at me.

  I didn’t dodge.

  It hit my chest.

  I made a few more, and we started tossing them back and forth in the cramped shelter.

  For the first time, I heard her laugh — thin as a bell’s chime, completely wrong for this dead land.

  Soon she fell asleep, curled up on the hard stones.

  But the moment silence returned, the voice inside me woke with renewed force.

  “She slows you down, Zenhald,” it hissed, its laughter like a snake. “Get rid of her. Hand her to anyone. She’ll be better off without you — you know it. You’re putting her at risk. Your path is littered with corpses, and she’ll be the next one if you don’t drop her now.”

  —I can protect her, I snapped back in my mind.

  “AHA-HA-HA-HA!” The voice erupted into hysterical laughter. “You, Zenhald, think you’ll raise her? The Demon King as a nanny? You’re even more pathetic than I thought. You want to build a world on apples and children’s laughter? Look at your hands — they’re in her father’s blood. Sooner or later she’ll understand. And then your ‘cold snow’ will become real ice to her.”

  I stared at sleeping Riza. Her wings twitched slightly in her sleep.

  “Shut up,” I whispered into the dark.

  But I knew he was right.

  My presence was salvation and curse at the same time.

  Chapter: “The Price of Power”

  Five days to the Spearman’s residence — a long time for someone used to moving with a snap of his fingers.

  But I walked.

  I walked so Riza would get used to the road, and so the world would see: someone new is walking these lands.

  On the third day the sky above us suddenly turned crimson.

  A shadow — huge and swift — swallowed the wasteland.

  “Dragon!” Riza cried and instantly dove behind my back, gripping my jacket so hard the seams crackled. “He’s dangerous, Zenhald! They… they’re the strongest! Hide!”

  I didn’t move.

  A red dragon, its scales gleaming like molten metal, dove down. It wasn’t here to negotiate. A stream of blinding flame burst from its mouth — enough to turn rock into lava in seconds.

  I simply raised my hand.

  A transparent barrier dome took the impact. Fire flowed around us, licking helplessly at the invisible wall, and inside the circle not even dust stirred. Riza watched over my shoulder, her eyes the size of coins. She saw death a meter from her face — and it couldn’t touch us.

  The dragon landed, raising a storm of ash. It lowered its massive head, studying me with vertical pupils.

  “Who are you?” it rumbled, and stones vibrated from the voice. “I haven’t seen humans in these lands for centuries. You don’t run. You don’t smell of fear. And with you… her.”

  “My name is Ark Grim,” I answered, my voice amplified with mana, cutting through the beast’s growl. “Listen carefully. You will fly west. There are villages there — boars, goblins, lizards. They are under my protection now. You will become their shield. If any of the High come for tribute or blood — you will burn them.”

  The dragon opened its jaws, about to laugh or unleash another torrent of flame.

  I didn’t give it time.

  I let my power spill out.

  Thousands of lightning strikes hit earth and sky at once, weaving into a gigantic cage around the dragon. The air rang with colossal tension. In the ancient beast’s eyes flared a primal, pure fear. It understood: this was not a child. This was something higher on the food chain.

  “Fine…” it rasped, lowering its head to the ground. “Your will, Ark Grim.”

  It beat its wings, raising a true hurricane, and vanished toward the villages.

  Silence returned to the wasteland.

  Riza slowly stepped out from behind my back. She looked after the departing dragon, then down at my hands, where rare sparks still crawled.

  “You’re so strong…” she whispered. “I… I want to become like that too. To be like you.”

  I stopped.

  A bitter taste touched my lips.

  “That power costs too much, Riza. You don’t pay for it with gold — you pay with pieces of your soul. You don’t need it.”

  “Still!” She stomped her foot stubbornly. “If I’m strong, I can protect the ones I love. I won’t have to hide behind someone’s back.”

  Something stabbed inside me.

  She’s six.

  She should be dreaming of dolls or pretty dresses, not thinking about protecting “loved ones” she barely has left.

  I looked at her — small, fragile, with those absurd dark wings.

  “I’m a bad teacher, Riza,” I said, and my voice went cold, like that snow in the shelter. “And I’m a bad person too. I can’t help you. I have other plans.”

  She froze, staring up at me.

  “The first village that agrees to take you will be your home,” I continued, looking ahead toward the mountains. “I’ll leave you there. It’ll be safer than staying with me.”

  Riza went quiet instantly.

  The joy from the miracle faded, replaced by heavy, adult understanding. She didn’t argue. She didn’t cry. She simply lowered her head and walked behind me, keeping a few steps’ distance.

  The silence turned thick and sticky.

  Every soft scrape of her feet on stone echoed in my head like an accusation.

  “Well, Ark Grim?” the inner voice purred with satisfaction. “Feel lighter? That’s what you wanted — distance. You’re a monster, Zenhald. And monsters always end up alone. Look at her — you just killed the last hope inside her. Good job.”

  I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms.

  I didn’t turn around.

  Ahead was the Spearman.

  Ahead was war.

  And children had no place in war.

  Even if they eat your apples

  and call you by name.